Love, Links, Archives: Saving and Sharing the Wendy Clarke Tape Collection.

FAIN: PW-290470-23

University of Wisconsin, Madison (Madison, WI 53715-1218)
Eric Hoyt (Project Director: July 2022 to present)

The digitization of 863 original videotapes produced by artist Wendy Clarke for a series of 15 video projects dating from the 1970s to 1990s that explored themes of love, community, culture, and self-reflection across multiple underrepresented communities.  

The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research respectfully seeks an implementation grant to digitize, preserve, and make widely accessible the work of video artist Wendy Clarke. Spanning nearly 30 years, this collection includes Clarke’s groundbreaking collaborative video projects, including The Link, Love Tapes, and Growing Up Gay: The Out Tapes. While these video projects remain powerful works of art, they have taken on new meanings: an archive of the voices of marginalized communities; a model of participatory media that preceded the world wide web; a challenge to traditional cinematic canons; and a unique contribution toward the theme of “A More Perfect Union.” Clarke’s collection is at risk of loss, with 863 undigitized original tapes, recorded on 13 different formats, with no captions and little description. This project will digitally preserve the videos and culminate in the launch of a website that allows users to interact with Clarke’s projects in multiple contexts.